As many people I'm acquainted with may know, I've had horrible luck with the opposite sex, and over the past year have basically sworn them off. I've thrown away options or never pursued ones that were there just out of a lack of effort, no motivation to have a girlfriend, and the constant fear of going through past experiences all over again. But there's this other part of me, this nagging side that has the exact opposite thoughts. Granted, my common sense side rules over all, so those thoughts are overruled anyway, but it still bugs me.

I've had a lot of dreams this past year involving my more recent relationships, or relationship, I should say. Many dreams involving ex's have been purely of a sexual nature, but this isn't the case for me in every dream. Many of them have entailed details of a relationship I've always found to be pleasant. The closeness, the simplisitic cuddling, the kind words, whatever. And whenever I wake up from this apparition of a dream, there's always another small part of me that wants these things back. Not the old relationship, really...just the things in it that I had. For the longest time, I felt that I needed a decent relationship to be happy, to be complete, etc. After enough bad experience, I tried to ignore that as much as I could just to protect myself. I wanted to be happy with someone, but I kept failing to find the qualities I was looking for. For every good quality I found, there was always another to contradict it.

But the more I think about the way I am now, the ways I've changed due to all my bad experience, sure I'm glad that I have my guard up and know not to repeat previous mistakes, I'm not completely positive that this I hate girls stage is completely...me. I don't deny my large mistrust of the opposite sex, but I'm not sure how solid this phase is. It's like there's two sides of me fighting each other, one wants to take the risk, and one doesn't care to bother. It's confusing. I'm starting to feel that all these emotions, feelings, and wants associated with relationships that I have to keep bottled because there's no relationship are coming out in my sleep, which would explain why I have so many frequent dreams involving my last girlfriend. But at the same time, the thought of being serious with someone again scares the hell out of me. I don't know if it's all based on my bad experience, or because of the fact that I've been out of the game for so long that I'm simply too used to the way things are now. I've always been slow to change. Now that I'm so accustomed to not having the added weight of a relationship, I don't even know if I could properly manage one when that day comes. Maybe it's one of those I'll I can do it when it presents itself type things or what...I really don't know.

While I'm on the subject, though, I can't help but thing how I would react now if things were different. If I hadn't gone through the whole debacle junior year, or the bad aftermath after my last relationship ended. Would I be the person I am now? I don't think so. But I'd also be more gullible, and more prone to hook up with a person that would hurt me in the ways I've already been hurt. I don't deny the fact that my past experience for better or for worse has made me the difficult person I am today, but maybe that's good in a way. Bad in a way that should I find something worth my time, I may not take it. I've always said I wouldn't change what I've gone through just for the fact that it helped change parts of me which needed to change, but did it change things that didn't need changing? I think so. While my gullible and trusting people blindly side is happily gone now, so is a good portion of the sensitive side I used to have. It wouldn't come in handy now anyway, but I've always felt that made me just a bit different from all the guys I've heard chicks complaining about for years. Once I feel I had something that made me somewhat unique...either that's gone or it's dormant from a lack of necessity. I really don't know.